Synopsis: Two alien races, the Antican and the Selay, wish to be admitted to the Federation, so they can get the discount card and the cool bumper sticker that comes with the welcome packet. But before they can join the club, they have to learn to play nice with each other, because in the enlightened future of Star Trek, only people who get along with each other can be in the United Federation of Planets. In order to work out their differences, delegates from each planet hitch a ride on the Enterprise to the Parliament planet, which is in the nearby Funkadelic system.

On the way, Data's sensors pick up a giant energy cloud, which really shouldn't be there, because the Enterprise is traveling at warp speed. Picard decides to slow down and take a quick look.

Meanwhile, Geordi and Worf are doing some maintenance on the ship's sensor systems. I'm sure nothing unusual will happen when the ship's sensors scan the energy cloud, right? Oh! Wrong. The ship scans the cloud, and big blue bolts of energy zap right out of the the wall and into Worf, knocking him to the ground almost as easily as every other adversary Worf will encounter for the rest of the series.